Take command of one race to join the struggle for supremacy in the galaxy. As the leader of your empire you are tasked with exploring the stars, colonizing new worlds, managing your empire and conquering whoever dares to oppose you.

Buy Lords of the Black Sun

November 17, 2014

We’re back with the biggest update that we have released so far since the game’s launch 2 months ago.

We've focused mostly on stability, with many major changes under the hood, but we also put a lot of work on balancing several areas of the game, like the tech tree and AI for example as well as fixing several bugs.

Here's the changelog for 1.03:

-Improved stability
-Story events races now start with 4 planets instead of 1
-The Arka'avi and Osian races now have much better technology, making them significantly harder to beat
-Raze planet crash fixed
-It's now harder to have the AI accept long term payment deals, making it much harder to lead the AI bankrupt by asking or giving several loans. Additionally it also takes its current debt into account when making a decision.
- Added new Background music track
- Implemented a series of experimental stability fixes
- Added Space Key to skip cinematic intro
- Going back from the game to the main menu now restarts the new game settings
- Made the AI use diplomacy more actively
- Rebalanced the tech research time of several technologies in all branches
- Added Plasma Weapon Z-IV technology and ship part
- Fixed non working Technology Level tooltip when a pirate faction is
selected in the Diplomacy menu
- Fixed non working Enter Key in initial intro
- Fixed General without weapons bug
- Fixed events that are triggered when right after starting a new session
- Fixed non working "Broken Chains" speech
- Fixed barely noticeable effect of the Emergency Chip, Improved
Medical Care and Pharmaceutics technolgies
- Fixed Minor Race menu not showing the state of your relations when
they really like you
- Fixed "too much weight" window bug when leaving the ship design menu
- Fixed non working Enter Key in initial intro
- Fixed "can't estabilish trade routes with empire X" due to embargo or war message popping up when trying to move a ship to one of your planets

As always, we are listening to your feedback and really appreciate any report of issues you may find.
That said, we really hope you enjoy this update !

September 24, 2014

Hello everyone !
This new patch includes some more bug fixes and balancing but also significant improvements in the ship design and research areas.

We are also working on a patch to further improve stability for those who still have issues and looking at possible fixes for those who also have issues with dual monitors setups. We'll be keeping you guys on the loop.

For now here's the changelog:

-Added more slots to the capital ship
-Added Escape key shortcut to end Intro videos
-Added specific icons for each ship part type in Ship Design
-Fixed ship design scroll bug
-Fixed wrong Armor ship parts stats
-Fixed tooltips for shield and armor slots in the ship design menu
-Added warning when trying to put a ship part in design that has too much weight
-Added unknown research mechanic
-Balanced weapons, shields and armor weight

About This Game

Lords of the Black Sun is an epic, complex, dense, turn-based 4X PC strategy game, set in deep space.

Take command of one race to join the struggle for supremacy in the galaxy. As the leader of your empire you are tasked with exploring the stars, colonizing new worlds, managing your empire and conquering whoever dares to oppose you.

The galaxy is full of secrets and dangers: Discover ancient ruins and artifacts, repel or befriend pirates, promote a general to guide your fleets to victory. Concoct complex plots with your allies or use your intelligence services to uncover weak spots on that threatening empire whose leader has vowed to destroy you.

Make sure to keep your population happy or be prepared to face protests against your rule, or in a worst case scenario, rebel factions within your empire.

Only the mightiest rulers can prevail in the depths of space. Are you up to the task of becoming a Lord of the Black Sun?

Key features:

8 major races each with their own ship designs, technologies, unique traits and unique abilities, meaning playing with each race is a different challenge and offers new ways to approach the game.

Big, living universe: In addition to the major powers, independent races and pirate clans also claim the galaxy as their residence; their existence can be an annoyance, or a blessing if you can take advantage of them.

Deep economical and political layer: War isn’t the only way to weaken your rivals. Diplomacy, inteligence and trade can be one of many powerful tools that, if used properly, can be very effective as well.

Tactical Turn based combat.

Create and customize your own ship designs.

Generals: These unique and powerful units evolve as they battle and if used well can be the difference between defeat and victory.

Randomly generated universe, tech tree and units: You will never play the same game twice.

Empire shattering: Unrest might lead rebels to start a civil war which in turn might lead to the creation of a new, independent empire that might grow to rival your own.

Plotting: Secretly finance a war against your rivals in order to weaken them or prepare a surprise joint war along with your allies in a bid to destroy that frighteningly fast growing empire.

Human-like AI that doesn’t cheat and plays by the same rules as human players, while presenting a constant challenge.

Play Multiplayer and Hotseat online via LAN or IP/internet.

System Requirements

Minimum:

OS: Windows XP SP3, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1

Processor: Dual Core 2.0 Ghz

Memory: 2 GB RAM

Graphics: 256 MB graphics card

DirectX: Version 9.0c

Hard Drive: 1150 MB available space

Sound Card: Integrated

Additional Notes: There is a known issue with people using ATI cards on Vista so if you are one of those we recommend you skip the game until a fix is found

The game feels very simple and basic. There is nothing to this game that I wouldnt expect from any other x4 game, and this is still on the light side of 4x games. It does not get very in depth with any game mechanic. Combat is mediocre, Diplomacy is mediocre, research is very limited with a relatively small research tree compared to other more recent 4x games. All in all, the game is just bland and sub par. Honestly, it feels like playing a unity based game in a web browser. I would expect to find similar mechanics and gameplay from a free game site.

Its also not stable. When creating a game, picking certain map settings could cause a crash. First battle I lost, caused a crash. Within a period of 30 minutes just to check out the full release version, I had 3 crashes.

I really love the sci-fi space based 4x genre, and I wanted this game to be good because there are so few games in this genre that can hold a candle to what MoO2 was for its time. This game does not get close. I would not recommend this game to anyone, not even casual players.

Once upon a time, an intergalactic warlord colonized a planet with their species. This game is the result.

It's not often my lead-ins to my reviews are so short, and it's not often that I review a game prior to spending at least 24 hours in-game with it, but this game isn't one I can recommend, for various reasons.

First things first - "Lords of the Black Sun" is a space-based 4X game, where you attempt to conquer the universe, Cid Meyer's Civilization-style. You build installations on planets, create colony ships, build pre-defined military vessels, and can even create custom units. Units stack, and space battles take place in a sort of Final Fantasy Tactics cut-out battle scene.

All of this sounds like a strategy gamer's dream, so why do I sound so against it?

First, the interface is horrible, and I'm not merely talking about the presentation, though that's pretty awful. The UI isn't optimized for a player's experience; it's hard to see even a neophyte developer looking at the UI and thinking, 'the players are going to love this.' Most of the menuing takes more actions than is really necessary.

Second, the game itself feels utterly soulless. It feels like someone started by taking a look at Cid Meyer's Alpha Centauri, then proceeded to put it further into space, but instead of hiring a writer, gave it to someone's nephew. The result is an experience that doesn't capture the wonder of interstellar colonization, or galactic politics, but is rather an experience that it's hard to care about for even a single session.

Mechanically, the game is sound - as stated above, it's the sort of thing strategy gamers claim to love and want. The execution is so terrible, especially given the $30 asking price, which is entirely too much for what you're getting. Firaxis Games, these guys ain't.

PROS:

Mechanicallly sound game

Great space visuals

Interesting fleet-to-fleet combat

Good custom unit creation system.

CONS:

Uninspired, forgettable writing and scenario

Ugly UI that impedes the player

Forgettable music

Unstable game - the end of my expeirence came after the game just crashed for no apparent reason.

Way too expensive for what you're actually getting.

Verdict: Avoid it. The developers need to do some serious work on this game and lower the price for this game to be worth it. If they will do this, I will take a second look and re-evaluate my review.

If I could refund this game, I would. I watched a review of this game from several months ago, and it looked promising. More than promising actually, it looked like it could be an excellent game that combines many of the aspects that I love. Overall, it appears to be something like Sins of a Solar Empire crossed with Civilization crossed with Democracy. The issue was that it was not a finished game.

Jump forward to now, and it is on the front page of Steam, announcing that it is a finished game. FAR FROM IT. I should have looked more at the fine text, but the developer says that even though it is moving out of early access, it stills needs patching. This is evident from the start. The intro splash took quite some time to load, even on a fairly powerful computer and locked my screen to the program until it finished. Typos and grammatical errors are common, even on the first few small text boxes of the tutorial. Additionally, the textures are rediculously poor on higher zoom levels, even on max graphical settings. What sealed the deal for me though was the frequent crashing brought about by this game.

Again, though this game has promise, it is not yet ready. I feel as though I was tricked into buy an incomplete game. The saddest part of it is that if this game came out in a ready state, I might have loved it. But my initial play has only served to frusturate me.

You will not find anything really new in here - all of it exists in other, better made games such as Distant Worlds or GalCiv2.

There are still some major bugs that have not been taken out - I can't even open the trade menu without a crash to desktop.

Ship design is weak - from the start, you get 4 hulls that go from tiny to small - with only no improvements available to increase what you can fit in them. The techs for ships don't provide any options - the missiles, beams and lasers are essentially the same. There are no fighters or bases.

Tactical fights are available but not terribly exciting - nor does it provide any depth as all weapons are in essence identical.

Many of the "management tools" are absent or in very basic form - you can't rearrange build queues, set up rally points, understand how much science, industry, or trade any particular action is going to generate. It's weird how you have to close an empire menu before opening the next one rather than switching between them.

The tech tree is pretty minimal - maybe 50-60 items in total. It gets boring in the 2nd part where you get solid lines of 3-4 consecutive "industry +1" or "research +1". It rarely opens up new abilities, just improves your starting ones.

Minor races have no interaction, except for pirates. You can send a trade ship there, tho with the game maxing out at 4 trade lines, it's not clear why you should bother.

What is working in this game is relatively fine. It just seems like they ran out of time to fine-tune and tweak the content in fun and interesting ways. Perhaps updates wil improve this solid, but it is currently an extremely bland X4 experience.

Verdict - unless you are scrapping the bottom of the barrel for x4 games, skip until a few updates.

Competent but uninspired. There's nothing here to really make the game stand above any of the others available in the genre. It's playable and accessible, but that's about it.

Edit: I don't mean for this to sound as though it's a bad game. It really isn't. It's just not a bad game in the same way that a Nissan Bluebird isn't a bad car; sure, you can get to work in it, but it's no Shelby Cobra.

The game just feels bland. I was excited when I read obout this game, kept an eye on it as it was being developed, and hungery grabbed it when it was released as a "full game". I have heard that there is still some development and work still being done on the game, wich I truly hope there is because if this is the final product then this is embarassing; as the game is buggy as all hell.

Bugs aside, the gameplay itself is boaring and unispired. Every aspect of gameplay feels like it was half finished and left in it's most basic form. Nothing about this game felt good, why did I waste my money?

I am a enthusiastic player of all 4X games, sank lots of hours into the Civ Series, into GalCiv2 and also played Master of Orion 2. And if you expect something of similar quality here, I have to disappoint you:-The Mechanics: One of the Game Defining Mechanics is how the production works. It works on a global level. Meaning each planet generates global production. If you colonize a second planet the production from the main planet will therefore sink as it's not the only "receiver" anymore. In addition you speed up the production massively with each factory you build. It's almost like reducing the time by half with each factory, which makes no sense. This way you spent a couple of turns building factories, then you design your combat ship, create a couple of them, and kill one "very hard" opponent after the other. Your hardest opponent will be pirates. Balance is completely broken and make all mechanics besides of production and military obsolete. The Global mechanics also kill the feeling of having "special planets". Each planet is just contributing a bit to the "geater good". But that doesn't feel good.While the game features tactical combat it's not planned out well and as the AI does not focus fire on your ships it will always lose when having troops with even strength.-The Interface: It works. But it isn't good. Instead of mouseover tooltips you have to click on stuff to get the information, right mousebutton is closing windows. The production windows are tiny, creating a minimum of overview. You also cannot re-arrange your production queue or edit your ship-designs.-Stability: The game tends to crash after you solved a combat. Within 90 Minutes of the release version the game crashed twice.-The Music: Is really good, but of course doesn't save the game

Considering that in terms of balancing and game mechanics I didn't see much of a change since I played one of the first alphas I'd say that the chances of getting fixes in the near future is very low. The game has some potential, but in the current state (Release Version / September 2014) I recommend to not buy this game and take a look at the Galactic Civilization 3 Beta instead.

I bought the game in it's early access stage. It wasn't that great at the time, but I had hoped that they'd improve the gameplay and graphics. Boy, was I in for a surprise.

The game didn't change much since late early access. It still does crash, although not as frequently as it used to. The game interface could be a lot more useful and informative. It could be prettier while retaining it's functuality. It could be easier to use the various functions especially when you look at the menus like research or espionage, it should be possible to actually understand the different ratings the game has ingame or if they actually have any meaning... It could be so much more and even then it would only be a medicore game, being inferior in every aspect to for example - Endless Space -

This is basically a typical 4x game with any pretenses of originality or individuality stripped out. There are a small handful of different races, all bog standard, and they all play pretty much the same.

Did I mention that it crashes frequently? My played time is much lower than it otherwise would be, as a result. I put a few hours into the game, and I've got a pretty good idea of what it has to offer (Hint: it offers crashes)

The game has nothing whatsoever to commend it over any other 4x space game. The intro videos are decent, I guess, but not extraordinary. Unless some serious changes are made, skip this title and find any one of dozens of other, better games of its genre.

seriously? i played 9 hours, and in that time i managed to win multiple games, and doing all achievments...

this game claims to be a 4x game, and it might well be, but make no mistake of comparing it to any serious veteran of that genre... if you are used to games like space empires IV, galactic civilisation III or lo and behold, Master of Orion II, then you will find this a heavily diluted 4x experience indeed.... Minimalistic tech tree, ship building that acutally doesn't deserve being called that (all you get are 4 different hulls you know from the start with a fixed tonnage of stuff you can squeeze in, no chance on improving that in any way...), "tactical" combat that is too small and too limited in options (the lackluster techtree might play a part in that as well) without much variety and a relly simple interaction with other races really sum up this game perfectly.... Have a smattering of bugs and exploits on top of that (i still find it ridiculous how you can loan any alien race money, even if they are at war with you, and at like 100% interest...)

so, all i can say, if you search for a good 4x game..... keep searching, you won't find that with this title...

This game is OK, but its a 5 dollar phone app, not a 30 dollar PC game. Nothing is really bad about this game, and nothing is really good about the game. I should have waited a few days for the reviews to trickle in. I rarely write reviews unless I feel I have been dooped or think a game is amazing. I was dooped... save your money friends.

It saddens me to see where the space empire genre is headed. Mass-produced ♥♥♥♥♥, sorry but it's all i can honestly say about this one. Even compared to Orion from the 90s, this game is sub-par. The graphics are kindof horrible for a 2010+ game. It's lagging like crap after a few hundred turns in a huge galaxy where i havn't even bothered to explore it all yet. The technology system is weird and confusing, not saying it's hard though, it's extremely simple. But it's illogical, can't say exactly what i mean by that but that's how i feel it."Ship building" is rediculous. 4 different hulls, wich you start with btw, having different tonnage, wich i havn't seen a tech that enhances either. Each of these hulls have slots for weapons, engines, defences and a slot for "army" or "colony" and special features. But i havn't found a way where you can actually fill these up in either class. And the new technologies with better weapons are heavier than the originals making it less likely to fill these spots out fourther on.

Solar systems can have planets in them that are not recognized as planets. out of 10 solar systems, all had planets but only 4 of the solar systems actually had registered planets that could be colonized, the rest where just dead textures.

This game looked very promising and I had my hopes up that it would get to the point of being a true 4x strat game. Well it never got there, it looks nice but the gameplay is totally bland and has nothing unique about it. It portrays itself as "epic, complex, and dense" but I would have to say its 100% the opposite; mediocre, simple and shallow. On a positive note, if you have children that are under 10 and you are trying to teach them about 4x strategy, this game is a very good training game for them...if it can hold there attention.

Broken. If this was still beta, I would understand, but it's not. I really wanted and even tried to like this game, a lot. But It is infested with weired bugs that haper and at times, kills the joy this game might have. I did buy this durning the beta phase or something and didn't have high hopes when playing then, but since it release 2 days ago and I figured it was a better game then when I got it. The game still crashes or the star systems turn white or I am unable to scan planets, thats just a few out a crap ton ( I can go on for a while). I even did a fresh install of the game and even went in to the directory and deleted the files and flolders after the second time. Pretty much this was a big let down. The game in a jist is a basic 4x game with nothing special. The research tree is just your avrage research tree. Kinda like all your other 4x games, nothing. Its the same with doplomacy, ( which can bug out an you can randomly have to pay 8000 credits to pirates on the tenth turn or be killed off.), I don't know how good planet managemnt is because it bugs out and I ether can't see my planets int he panel or it bugs out and crashes the game. It's the same with mangaging trade routes. One thing I will say is kind of special is the espionage and ministers. Tho, you can hire spys, you have to wait for ministers to come alone which can take forever. I never got around to the fleet combat part of the game. The game gets to many bugs going at once that it becomes unplayable before I am ready for any kind of war. I wouldn't really waste any money on this. Dispite looking like a unique good looking game. I feel the devs or whatever just gave up and pubished this as is when they got enough money from it.

This game has taught me to read through the reviews before buying. I'm afraid this game doesn't have much going for it. Stability issues, gameplay is awkward, balancing issues - just overall not much redeemable about it.

Meh. It looks kinda like a good game, but it crashes a lot and the balance seems terrible. As far as I could tell the first beam weapon I researched was better than the final beam weapon or the final plasma weapon in the tech tree.

Put simply, Lords of the Black Sun is a mechanically sound game (i.e. all the pieces, although not flashy, work and serve their purpose) that fails to blend together to create a harmonious whole. The game often feels disjointed, lacks real depth or innovation, and is mediocre even in what it tries to do differently from others (i.e. espionage, empire-wide management).

While it might be worth a few hours of gameplay, Lords of the Black Sun lacks the fine detail and substance that make players return to games over and over again. This will likely be played once by most and then gather proverbial dust in the Steam library, especially fans of the genre who have come to expect much more from 4X titles.

Lords of the Black Sun has some positives, but they don’t come close to outweighing the negatives. The limited graphics, lack of flavor (races, diplomacy, planets) and unfinished edges make for an experience I have no interest in repeating again. The current price tag is exorbitant for a game that could easily be mistaken for a title designed for a browser or mobile platform.